Hobbits
After much persuasion and several late nights of sending images back and forth, Ashley finally convinced me to see Lord of the Rings in the fall of 2004. Though I very much enjoyed Fellowship, I grew weary of the infinitrillion* epic battle sequences in the second and third films in the trilogy. I realized somewhere around the fortieth hour of Return of the King that, Gimli’s Dwarfish sensibilities and Faramir’s hereditary niftiness aside, the only reason I was still watching at all was that I absolutely adored the often flighty, always cheerful, precious little pookies known as Hobbits.
That was around the time that I had fallen hard for Jason Marsden, so it’s entirely possible that I was just going through a Diminutive Actor phase. I somehow think that I would have gone for them even if they had all been over six foot, though, because the characters’ personalities are cute beyond belief regardless of their physical attributes. The fact that they are cute little guys is just the little squiggle of white icing on the cupcake when you consider that Hobbits are the Ron Stoppables of Middle-earth.
The trilogy introduces us to a quartet of Hobbits of varying degrees of perspicacity, clumsiness, and gluttony who join the Fellowship to keep things interesting. These four are easily the characters I care most about in the second and third films.
Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood): Elijah Wood was one of the first actors to ever strike me as attractive, in an eyes-too-big-for-his-head kind of a way. This was many years ago, however, and I never really became the kind of diehard fan that would love his characters regardless. So, despite childhood loyalties, I’m not a terribly big Frodo fan. The boy’s just a little too whiny for my tastes – a little too Louis de Pointe du Lac and not enough Remus Lupin, if that makes sense to anyone else. Even so, he’s got good taste in friends, and he’s actually almost likeable when he’s not whining about his burden, mistrusting his best friend, or making bizarre squeaky noises.
Meriadoc Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan): Merry is more cautious than Pippin, less gluttonous than Pippin, more practical than Pippin... It’s not easy to describe Merry, except in terms of Pippin. And that is his great misfortune: he is not easily isolated from Pip. Not that their friendship is unfortunate – quite the opposite, in fact – but Merry has to wait until the hundredth hour of the trilogy before he gets to develop himself as an individual.
Peregrin Took (Billy Boyd): Pippin somehow managed to become my favourite of the Hobbits, despite the fact that he is very clearly the most irritating. I suppose I must have been in the mood for clumsy, good-natured menaces when I first saw Fellowship in its entirety. I of course mean “menace” in the best possible way – Pip doesn’t mean to be the one forever waking up the big, nasty monsters... The Scottish accent is just perfect, too.
Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin): Soapwort McFuggletoes! Sorry... Sammie is the cutest little guy since...well, since Pip. But that’s where the similarities between the two end. Sam is one of the two characters who seem to have any sense at all (and the only one of the two who lives...), and he is very clearly the hero of the story. Frodo never would have made it past the Shire without Sammie, much less all the way to...the place that I can’t remember the name of... Mount Doom? I don’t know. I was barely awake at that point. I was trying, because I really do like Sam a lot, but it was just so hard with all of the fighting and such. Poor little Sam, though, having to babysit a Took, a Brandybuck, and a crazy man... And if there was any question as to the awesomeness of Sammie, the tater scene is the best ever.
Man... I didn’t mean to come down on the movies as hard as I did. I really do like Fellowship a lot, and the Hobbit parts in TTT and RotK are almost worth watching the movies again in a few months. My suggestion to New Line: forget the Extended versions and release the Good Parts Version – all the Hobbit scenes. Trim the trilogy down to a couple of hours, and charge the same as you do for the extended ones. You’ll win because it’ll take less time, less energy, less material. I’ll win because I won’t have to sit through any more multi-hour-long battles between orcs and people whose names I don’t think I ever even knew.
It’s not like New Line needs any more money, or like anyone else in the world agrees with me that the rest of the trilogy is unnecessary. Just a suggestion, though. Ah, well. I guess that’s what Scene Select is for.
Leave the comfort of the Shire
* My sister coined the term to describe the number of hamsters most people wind up with when they buy two “females” and keep them in the same cage, but later conceded that it was perfectly suitable for describing certain scenes from Two Towers and Return of the King. Back up
Page created July 2, 2005.
